The present invention relates to coverings for floors, walls, ceilings or the like, such as fabrics or carpeting, whether broadloom or modular, and particularly relates to coverings having discrete surface portions of primary backing and tufted yarns exposed along the technical face of the fabric.
Tufted fabrics are those fabrics in which a plurality of yarns are stitched through a primary backing or substrate, forming loops which comprise the fabric surface or which loops may be cut to form a cut loop pile fabric surface. Machinery for forming tufted fabrics typically have one or more needle bars with a plurality of needles threaded with individual yarns reciprocating relative to a moving substrate to pass the needles carrying the yarn through the substrate, forming loops. Yarn is fed to the needle bars from yarn feed rolls which are typically controlled by clutches or servomotors to enable different lengths of yarns to be fed to the needles to achieve a patterning effect in the technical face of the fabric. That is, to provide tufts, whether loop or cut, of different heights in a pattern in the technical face of the fabric, the clutches or servomotors are controlled to feed more or less yarn to the needle bars. An example of a textured surface having tufted pattern effects is disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,383,415 and 5,549,064, of common assignee. In those patents, the feed of the yarns to the needles of the needle bar is controlled to provide selected high or low tufts in warpwise and weftwise adjacent stitches. This has proven eminently satisfactory in providing various aesthetic effects in color and patterning of the fully tufted fabric.
It will be appreciated that the primary backing for tufted pile fabric serves as a support for the pile rather than to impart any aesthetics to the carpet. That is, the primary backing is conventionally totally obscured by the tufted fabric pile and plays no role in the aesthetic design of the carpet. It will also be appreciated that the machinery for, and resulting tufted product, typically require a tufted stitch at each stitch location, whether or not a high or low stitch is provided. This requires substantial quantities of yarn material to complete a tufted pile surface for the technical face of the fabric. Accordingly, there is a need for a fabric which can be manufactured at reduced costs, requiring less surface pile material with consequent reduced disposal concerns at the end of the fabric's useful life and which may have very different aesthetic characteristics as compared with conventional tufted pile fabrics.